[A-List] Re the "beyond" in "beyond fascism."

[Waistline2 at aol.com]

> It is not that global Islamist terrorism is not a severe danger;  of
> course it is. I am arguing rather that the language used to convey  the
> nature of the threat is different in a country such as Spain - which  has
> also suffered violent terrorist attacks - than it is in America.  Spanish
> citizens know that they face a grave security threat; what we  as
> American citizens believe is that we are potentially threatened with  the
> end of civilisation as we know it. Of course, this makes us more  willing
> to accept restrictions on our freedoms.
> 

Comment 
 
"The end of civilization as we know it" or "our way of life" is being  
threatened with destruction, was of course the moral rally point of the Southern  
Impendence Movement and then the Confederate States of America (CSA), and this  
secessionist movement is what ushered in the Civil War in America. The 
"outsider  in our midst" is a powerful tool for any government. When combined with a 
grave  external threat . . . after the country has been told it is being put 
on a  war footing, spells political fascism. 
 
The fascist can be defeated and will be defeated. The question is in what  
frame of time? 
 
What is emerging in America is something very different than the  huge Civil 
Rights Movement or the much smaller and less significant,  anti-war protest of 
the late 1960's and early 1970's.  
 
A revolutionary period is opening. Our specific problem is that left and  
right - indeed all social forces are compelled to attack the Constitution, from  
different directions, because it cannot articulate the striving of all the  
various social forces at play. That is why we had a Civil War. 
 
The communists and progressives fail to articulate that the fight is  not 
against property rights, but over whose will prevails concerning how  property 
rights are understood at this juncture of our history.  And  this is flat out a 
class issue, that may not come to the fore, until late in  a Constitutional 
crisis, which we are headed for.   
 
American history is instructive. The Civil War was not fought to free  slaves 
but to defeat the politics of the Slave Power. Unable to militarily  defeat 
the Slave Power ,the Emancipation Proclamation was proclaimed and the  slaves 
were freed in stages. 
 
The point is that if our line of fire is not the most rigid doctrine  of 
class and political power for proletarians, the social process in its  
intellectual life, can not pass through its stages of growth and awareness.  Bush W. 
social basis is virtually non existent and his political basis is  even more 
narrow. 
 
He is a fascist and must be labeled as such and he is vulnerable today.  

The issue is tricky because we are faced with the question of political  
liberties, which is slowly becoming clear to the intelligencia, and not  simply 
democracy as it is understood in America. The banner of democracy remains  the 
banner of the counterrevolution. Democracy without political liberties has  
always been the calling card of the fascist movement. This was the banner of the  
Southern impendence Movement and the Confederate States of America and is 
Bush  W. program for today. The model is Greek and Roman slave democracies. The  
concept of democracy without liberty. Jefferson concept was liberty without  
democracy. 
 
The fight for mass democracy in America is a battle for political liberty  
and the African American is at its core. 
 
We cannot get around this issue and our forefathers in the abolitionist  
movement took the issue head on. 
 
Emancipation arose out of the fight to preserve the union. So will  
proletarian power.
 
Far to many of us read history form a middle class point of view of  
democracy.
 
Today we must learn how to talk about political liberties as the meaning of  
democracy. 
 
Macdonald was correct; those not paying attention, would have in history  
supported the Southern Movement for Independence and slavery and the Confederate  
States of America (CSA) because it was in fact a democratic movement fully  
within the bounds of the American Constitution. The right of nations to self  
determination - on the part of the CSA, was resisted and defeated and that was  
the right thing to do.  . 
 
And they were wrong. 
 
The fight for political liberty exceeds the boundary of the contradiction  
between worker and capitalists. 
 
 
Melvin P. 
 
 
 
 



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